Great one-shot, I really enjoyed it! Hiko and Kenshin were beautifully in character, and you did a nice job showing Kenshin's inner conflict with his recent Bakumatsu past. Thanks for an enjoyable read!

ASWF chapter 1 . 10/25/2014

Very nice! Sad, but also hopeful. Very heartwarming, and refreshing too. I like your writing style, clean but vivid. Thanks for sharing and hope to see more from you! :)

Looks like he could go home, just not as the same person.
I thought it was pretty funny... then again, I supposedly have a dark sense of humor. As for how well you wrote Hiko, I'd say you did better than most I've read. Some people just try too hard maybe.
Well done.
#2

Beautiful story, thank you for sharing!
I love the way you have written HIko, right on the mark and geez, all that awesome insight you gave him. Kenshin's crisis was realistic too and the small fight scene was a gem 3

This is a wonderful little tale. Hiko may be hard to write - but you have him down. I really liked your take on how Battousai Hitokiri survived to become Rurouni Kenshin. Surely this story deserves more praise than it received.

Wonderfully written! I always enjoyed Hiko's and Kenshin's relationship, it's amongst the most adorable interactions in RuroKen imho, but its real beauty hides in its complexity - complexity which gives many authors trouble when they try to recreate it. They either make Hiko too mellow or Kenshin too brash and witty.

Yours story, however, is very nicely paced and characterized! The interactions seem natural and flowing, just as they ought to be, and they are so very adorable and heartfelt! The scene in the rain with kenshin training had be cringing at the emotions I could picture swirling in his head. Similarly other moments had me smiling like an idiot while reading xD The language and style used are also great!

Keep up the good work and thanks for writing this little adorable fic!

This was very nicely executed. I also don't think Kenshin was much for laughs at that point, but his whole mentality seems rather spot-on to me. And Hiko... seems perfect. Gotta love that man.

Guest chapter 1 . 3/12/2013

I thought this was fantastically well-written and very in-character, so no worries. I was actually expecting a lot more anger and arguing between the two, but I was very pleasantly and happily surprised that it turned out this way, instead.

Hiko IS an awesome character. And you've written him awesomely, too! Thanks so much for this little tid-bit. It's a nice deviation from the original series. At least it sticks in line with Kenshin's determination to carve a path for himself that people will remember him differently.

I think you got Hiko right. As you said, callousness and hidden care - it really came across. I particularly enjoyed Hiko's observations on how Kenshin's style of fighting has been changed by his time as an assassin.

This part, though:

Hiko snorted. "The Hiten Mitsurugi has taken more lives over the centuries than you could in a lifetime, Kenshin. I gave it to you so that you could protect the weak, and you did that. Maybe not in the way I would have liked," he added irritably, "but it was your decision. And it's your decision now. The Hiten Mitsurugi will always be yours—not even I can change that. So what will you do with it?"

i thought it was very funny, it had its serious moments but it had just the right amount of humor. i have seen kenshin join a kabuki troupe and i had seen him meet a formerly deadly swordsman who wore a bright orange gi who taught him to speak in an overly humble way using archaic terms/honorifics and act like a bumbling simpleton... but never had i seen him with hiko until after meeting kaoru and that makes this story special. i loved the whole thing and you didn't make hiko into anything but who he is, the grumpy curmudgeonly man who secretly cares. i have to add it to my list of greats to read over and over. thank you!
gin

I really enjoyed this. I can definitely see this as an alternate version to leading Kenshin to his Rurouni ways. I especially loved Kenshin's reflection on how he didn't anticipate being a specter that would be unable to live in the better world he hoped to create. "...he would never be able to step out of Battousai's shadow. As if that was all that was left of him, and whatever or whoever else he had been before the Bakumatsu had died somewhere in those darkened alleys. Another casualty of war." I thought the part where he stares at his refection and can't see beyond a deadened image of himself so despairs of others being able to do so was a particularly strong way to show how trapped he feels by his past. I think you did well with Hiko, striking a good balance between his care and his more caustic nature. He helps Kenshin but no babying allowed.